Succour (V/A 1995)

Ptolemaic Terrascope was kind of ground zero for all things psych and awesome. The zine brought together a community of diverse musicians not merely on its pages but also through its many festivals.

Yet, back in 1995, the zine found itself in some financial straits and the community came together in the form of this anthology as a way to raise money. It was a lovely gesture and it actually did get the zine through the rough patch.

Our track “Dartania” was the lead track of the anthology and for a band just starting out that was quite a humbling experience. Palace, Ghost, Mooseheart Faith, Bevis Frond, Robyn Hitchcock, Bardo Pond, Olivia Tremor Control, Captain Sensible, Nurse With Wound, Peter Buck, and so on all provided great tracks so it was not only great to help out PT but also an honor to be included with such great artists.

The track itself was from the same sessions that begot the Alien LP. The whole thing was improvised on a cassette 6 track with a lot of herb and beer over at Fransisco Rehearsal Studios in Houston. That is the same cassette 6 track that we recorded the first album on and that the Mike Gunn used to record “Almaron”. This is the original quartet with Clinton on lead and me making noise plucks below the bridge on the Jaguar and churning out whammy barred power chords.

Funny side-note the title is a misspelling of Dartanian. Larry picked the title but I’d never read the Three Musketeers so, being in a rush to submit the tape and this being in the somewhat early stages of the internet, I quickly tossed my best guess and clearly got it wrong.